April 11, 2008

About Faith

I worked long and hard with a very smart editor at O Magazine named Deborah Way to figure out just how to articulate where I am with faith these days. The back and forth, draft after draft, was the closest thing to therapy that I've had in years. Although there is much left to resolve, I was able to come up with a couple thousand words about it and you can read them in the May issue, which has just hit the newsstands. Since this was written, I've dug into the Bible (a children's version, in particular), some C.S. Lewis, a refresher course on Greek and Roman mythology and a collection of poetry called In Praise of Mortality, by Rilke. Oh, and the 2004 novel, Gilead. Hard to say yet where it's all leading but it definitely feels worthwhile.

The photo that runs with the essay was taken in New York, in January, the same week The Middle Place came out. My dad was with me as the original idea for the photo was to get him walking into the Cathedral and me hesitating out front. [St. Patrick's Cathedral has a noon mass that my dad used to frequent before he retired and stopped commuting to New York.] But in the end, the shot they went to print with was one of the very last they took, while my dad was around the corner getting us coffees. Greenie, you were robbed.

I am very interested to hear from you about your faith (in God, yoga, nature, retail therapy, service--whatever you believe in) so if you have thoughts after you read the essay, please post them.